System and Method for Restoration in a Multimedia IP Network

ABSTRACT

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer readable media for modifying IP backbone link weights such that multicast traffic and unicast traffic will not travel on a same path between nodes. The method comprises assigning link weights to nodes within an IP backbone such that multicast forwarding paths and unicast forwarding paths are failure disjoint, and delivering undelivered multicast packets using IP unicast encapsulation to the loopback address of next hop router on a multicast tree upon link/interface failure.

PRIORITY

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/910,274, which is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/019,797, filed Jan. 25, 2008, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,830,785,issued on Nov. 9, 2010, the content of which is included herewith in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to streaming traffic over anetwork, and relates more specifically to restoring multicast trafficupon failure through an IP network.

2. Introduction

Distribution of real-time multimedia over an IP backbone has beengaining momentum with content and service providers. However, unliketraditional cable-based broadcast infrastructures that provide“broadcast” analog-based video (such as TV), using an IP backbone forreal-time broadcast video distribution imposes stringent requirementsfor protection and restoration upon a failure. Broadcast TV distributionover an IP network usually adopts multicast forwarding, and ischaracterized by high bandwidth requirement and tight latency and lossconstraints even under failure conditions. The network should be able torestore service rapidly and achieve very high availability.

The current default architecture for the IP backbone consists of routersconnected by links with the topological state maintained by an interiorgateway protocol (IGP) such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). Eachlink is assigned a suitable weight and each router is configured withmulticast capability. A multicast tree is generated such that eachmultimedia destination (MD) receives only one copy of the IP packet fromthe server at the multimedia source (MS, or Head End). The MD consistsof backbone routers and servers that receive multimedia programs andserve customers in a specific serving area. For router protection,assume that each MD has two backbone routers that connect to each otherand connect to multimedia servers. The multimedia server receives allprograms from the multimedia source. The backbone routers are connectedvia bi-directional router links to form a multimedia IP-layer backbone.Then the whole multimedia network can be divided into one backbone andmultiple locales.

Some network restoration alternatives include IGP re-convergence only,Link-layer fast reroute, and fast reroute plus hitless multicast treeswitching, but each has its drawbacks.

IGP re-convergence relies completely on IGP routing andProtocol-Independent Multicast (PIM) forwarding. Whenever a networkfailure occurs, link state advertisements (LSA) are broadcast. The IGPre-computes its paths and next-hop routing tables. Upon completion, PIMre-computes its multicast tree. To avoid route flapping and to improvenetwork stability, IGP routing protocols are often designed with varioustimers calculated to limit the frequency of the shortest pathcalculation and dissemination of link state advertisements (LSAs). Ingeneral, the IGP protocol attempts to propagate information aboutfailures quickly, but waits to propagate less disruptive configurationchanges (when links or routers come up). Although those timers may beaggressively to achieve sub-second converging times, service providerstend to set those timers conservatively for stable network operation inpractice. Actual IGP converging times may vary, but transient pathoutages of 10 seconds or more may not be uncommon. The frequency ofoutages even from single link or router failures in a long distance IPbackbone that solely depends on IGP re-convergence and PIM multicasttree reconfiguration is likely to yield unacceptable quality of service(QoS) for broadcast video applications.

Link-layer fast reroute (FRR) overcomes the QoS impact caused by singleIP-layer link failures. For each link in the IP-layer topology, a bundlelink is pre-computed that consists of two paths: the primary path withhigh priority (usually the direct one-hop path between the routers) anda diverse backup path with low priority. The backup path is usuallydiverse at Layer 1 and at intermediate routers. From the standpoint ofthe Layer 3 IGP, the bundle link is down if and only if both the primaryand backup paths fail. In normal operation, the traffic is forwarded viathe primary path. Upon primary path failure, all traffic routed over theprimary path is rerouted onto the backup path, provided the backup pathis operational during the failure. Traffic remains on the backup pathuntil the failure is repaired and the primary path comes back up.

Some vendors have demonstrated a fast reroute mechanism to switch to thebackup path within 50 milliseconds. Since the primary path and itsbackup path are disjoint at the IP and physical layers, no bundle linkwill fail from any single fiber or WDM lower layer link failure ifhold-down timers are specified appropriately. Thus, for any single linkfailure, IGP will detect no change to the IP topology and, therefore, norouting changes will occur, nor will there be any changes to themulticast tree. The failure impact will thus be reduced from the ten ormore seconds possible under IGP re-convergence time to 50 millisecondsfor any single link failure.

One potential problem is traffic overlap during restoration. Anadvantage of IP multicast is the low cost for forwarding, i.e., oftenmuch lower link capacity is required when compared with unicastforwarding. Furthermore, given the large number of streams or channelscarried in today's video broadcast networks, significant multiplexinggain can be achieved. Thus, network capacity can be engineeredeconomically and with high link utilization during the normal(no-failure) state. However, during network failures, the use of linkback-up paths in the multicast network can potentially cause overlap ofstreams on the same link, which may lead to congestion. Here trafficoverlap means that the same multicast packets travel the same link alongthe same direction more than once. Even slight performance degradationin video networks can cause loss of service to particular destinations.To resolve this issue, IGP link weights may be tuned such that at leastone backup path exists for each link on the IP multicast tree and backuppath traffic does not overlap with the multicast tree upon any singlelink failure.

Another problem with FRR is that a backup path for a given link istypically pre-calculated independent of the backup paths of other links.Since the backup paths are pre-calculated, there is no real-time,dynamic accommodation for different combinations of multiple failuresand, consequently, traffic overlap may still occur during such failurestates. In long distance networks, multiple physical layer failures arenot extremely rare events and have a non-trivial effect on networkavailability and on the resulting video QoS. From the standpoint ofcombinatorial optimization, pre-defining backup paths that arefailure-state-independent, covering a significant set of multiplefailure states, and preventing traffic overlapping is usuallyinfeasible. Since repair times may be on the order of hours, the impacton network availability is non-negligible considering the more stringentQoS requirements from broadcast video.

The third alternative, fast reroute plus hitless multicast treeswitching, overcomes the congestion issues in link-layer fast reroute.The basic idea is to apply the fast reroute mechanism but effectivelylimit its use only to the period during IGP routing and PIM protocolre-convergence. After the primary path of a bundle link fails, thetraffic is switched over to the backup path. However, in contrast tolink-layer fast reroute, either a link-down LSA is generated or therouter costs-out the bundle link (setting the weight to a very highvalue) whenever an IP link fails such that the new IGP topology and theresulting multicast tree do not use the backup path. Once IGP routingconverges, a new PIM tree is rebuilt automatically. This achieves thebenefit of rapid restoration from single link failures, yet allows themulticast tree to dynamically adapt to multiple failures. Only duringthis small, transient period is the network exposed to potential pathoverlap on the same link along the same direction.

A key component of fast reroute plus hitless multicast tree switching ismake-before-break change of the multicast tree switching, i.e., therequirement to switch traffic from the old multicast tree to the newmulticast tree with minimal loss of traffic. This technique minimizesthe potential traffic “hit” that would be incurred after every singlefailure when the new tree is generated. The sequence of operations upona link failure for fast reroute plus hitless multicast tree switching isas follows:

-   -   (a) When a primary path failure occurs, invoke the FRR mechanism        to reroute the traffic to the backup path, provided the backup        is operational.    -   (b) Send out an LSA with “link-down” or one that advertises a        high weight (cost-out) for the associated IP-layer link. During        the time of IGP re-convergence, traffic is forwarded along the        backup path.    -   (c) After IGP re-convergence is completed, PIM rebuilds its        multicast tree.    -   (d) Once the multicast tree is rebuilt, implement the        make-before-break method, wherein joining of nodes to the tree        is sequenced so that downstream nodes are not joined to the new        tree until traffic flows to their parent nodes.

After the failures are repaired, LSAs are advertised to either announcethe links back up or their weights are reset to their original values,depending on the option chosen in step 4. This normalization phase isanother motivation for the “hitless” method, to minimize downtime aftera failure is repaired.

Fast reroute plus hitless multicast tree switching increases serviceavailability significantly. However, it still has some obviousdrawbacks. It increases network operation complexity significantly: thenetwork operator would have to manually configure the tunnels or run anadditional protocol (a signaling protocol) to create the tunnels; themethod still applies static backup path selection in that a dual failuremay take out both a primary link and its backup path; the IGP and PIMprotocols have to work coordinately; the software in routers has toimplement extra mechanisms, such as “make-before-break”. Accordingly,what is needed in the art is an efficient and simple way to avoidtraffic overlap and create dynamic backup path when streaming media overIP networks even in the event of one or more network failures.

SUMMARY

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be obvious from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Thefeatures and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained bymeans of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out inthe appended claims. These and other features of the present inventionwill become more fully apparent from the following description andappended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention asset forth herein.

Disclosed are systems, methods, and computer-readable media formodifying IP backbone link weights such that multicast traffic andunicast traffic will not travel on a same path between nodes byassigning link weights to nodes within an IP backbone such thatmulticast forwarding paths and unicast forwarding paths are failuredisjoint, and delivering undelivered multicast packets using IP unicastencapsulation to a next hop router on a multicast tree upon link/routerinterface failure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a moreparticular description of the invention briefly described above will berendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which areillustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawingsdepict only exemplary embodiments of the invention and are not thereforeto be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will bedescribed and explained with additional specificity and detail throughthe use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system embodiment;

FIG. 2 illustrates a method embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates the link weight setting algorithm;

FIG. 4 illustrates link weights for IP encapsulation;

FIGS. 5 a 1, 5 a 2, and 5 a 3 illustrate the impact of a dual linkfailure scenario with a static backup path approach;

FIGS. 5 b 1, 5 b 2, and 5 b 3 illustrate the impact of a dual linkfailure scenario with a dynamic unicast path approach;

FIG. 6 illustrates a sample undirected network graph with assignedweights; and

FIG. 7 illustrates a graph for a unicast routing path.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of the invention are discussed in detail below.While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understoodthat this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled inthe relevant art will recognize that other components and configurationsmay be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system includes a general-purposecomputing device 100, including a processing unit (CPU) 120 and a systembus 110 that couples various system components including the systemmemory such as read only memory (ROM) 140 and random access memory (RAM)150 to the processing unit 120. Other system memory 130 may be availablefor use as well. It can be appreciated that the invention may operate ona computing device with more than one CPU 120 or on a group or clusterof computing devices networked together to provide greater processingcapability. The system bus 110 may be any of several types of busstructures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Abasic input/output (BIOS) stored in ROM 140 or the like, may provide thebasic routine that helps to transfer information between elements withinthe computing device 100, such as during start-up. The computing device100 further includes storage devices such as a hard disk drive 160, amagnetic disk drive, an optical disk drive, tape drive or the like. Thestorage device 160 is connected to the system bus 110 by a driveinterface. The drives and the associated computer readable media providenonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules and other data for the computing device 100. The basiccomponents are known to those of skill in the art and appropriatevariations are contemplated depending on the type of device, such aswhether the device is a small, handheld computing device, a desktopcomputer, or a computer server.

Although the exemplary environment described herein employs the harddisk, it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that othertypes of computer readable media which can store data that areaccessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memorycards, digital versatile disks, cartridges, random access memories(RAMs), read only memory (ROM), a cable or wireless signal containing abit stream and the like, may also be used in the exemplary operatingenvironment.

To enable user interaction with the computing device 100, an inputdevice 190 represents any number of input mechanisms, such as amicrophone for speech, a touch-sensitive screen for gesture or graphicalinput, keyboard, mouse, motion input, speech and so forth. The input maybe used by the presenter to indicate the beginning of a speech searchquery. The device output 170 can also be one or more of a number ofoutput mechanisms known to those of skill in the art. In some instances,multimodal systems enable a user to provide multiple types of input tocommunicate with the computing device 100. The communications interface180 generally governs and manages the user input and system output.There is no restriction on the invention operating on any particularhardware arrangement and therefore the basic features here may easily besubstituted for improved hardware or firmware arrangements as they aredeveloped.

For clarity of explanation, the illustrative system embodiment ispresented as comprising individual functional blocks (includingfunctional blocks labeled as a “processor”). The functions these blocksrepresent may be provided through the use of either shared or dedicatedhardware, including, but not limited to, hardware capable of executingsoftware. For example the functions of one or more processors presentedin FIG. 1 may be provided by a single shared processor or multipleprocessors. (Use of the term “processor” should not be construed torefer exclusively to hardware capable of executing software.)Illustrative embodiments may comprise microprocessor and/or digitalsignal processor (DSP) hardware, read-only memory (ROM) for storingsoftware performing the operations discussed below, and random accessmemory (RAM) for storing results. Very large scale integration (VLSI)hardware embodiments, as well as custom VLSI circuitry in combinationwith a general purpose DSP circuit, may also be provided.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method embodiment of the invention. First, themethod assigns link weights to nodes within an IP backbone such thatmulticast forwarding paths and unicast forwarding paths are failuredisjoint (202). In this context, multicast packets may be assigned ahigher forwarding priority and encapsulated unicast packets may beassigned a lower forwarding priority to avoid unwanted congestion. TheIP backbone may be an undirected network graph that is at least2-connected, wherein at least one source node provides the multicasttraffic. Second, the method delivers undelivered multicast packets usingIP unicast encapsulation to a next hop router on a multicast tree uponnetwork failure (204).

The traffic provided may be a television, audio, or radio signal,streaming program instructions, etc. The traffic is not necessarilystrictly limited to one-way communications, and could be applied tosituations like conference calls (multicast traffic in both directions),issuing instructions to multiple nodes in a computing cluster (multicasttraffic in one direction and unicast traffic in the other), etc.

FIG. 3 illustrates the link weight setting algorithm. First, startingfrom the source node, locate a series of network links that form a ring(302). Second, initialize a graph as the nodes and links of the ring(304). Third, initialize weights along one direction of the ring as highcost and the other direction as low cost (306). Fourth, iteratively addlinks without weights to the graph by finding a series of links thatform a chain whose endpoints terminate at the graph, unidirectionallinks in one direction having a high cost and unidirectional links inthe other direction having a low cost, until all links are assignedweights (308).

The pseudo-code of our algorithm is presented as algorithm LinkWeight,where the notations are defined as follows: for any graph G′, E(G′)means the set of all links in G′, and |E(G)| is the number of the links;for any link (u,v) in G′, u(v) means the interface on node u connectingto node v. G′ and G″ indicate two graphs. G′+G″ means union of the twographs. G′\G″ means removing the sub-graph of G″ from graph G′.

ALGORITHM LinkWeight

Input: Network H, source s

Output: Graph G with link weight setting

Let G=; N=|E(H)|;

Find nodes s, u₁, . . . , v_(n), s that form a ring R on H;

-   -   Assign interfaces s(u), . . . , v(s) with weight 1;    -   Assign interfaces s(v), . . . , u(s) with weight N;    -   G=G+R; H=H\R;

Loop: Find nodes x, u₁, . . . , u_(k), y that form a chain C on H, wherex and y on G;

-   -   Assign interfaces x(u₁), . . . , u_(k)(y) with weight 1;    -   Assign interfaces y(u_(k)), . . . , u₁(x) with weight N;    -   G=G+C; H=H\C;

If H!=, go to Loop;

Return G;

A single multicast source is assumed, but even if multiple multicastsources exist at different locations, the network link weights assignedby LinkWeight algorithm will still separate the multicast trees andunicast paths.

The IP encapsulation restoration method could be implemented using twofunctions: upon detecting a failure, the multicast node encapsulatesundelivered multicast packets in unicast packets and sends them to thenext hop node on the multicast tree via unicast forwarding, and uponreceiving an encapsulated unicast packet, the multicast nodede-capsulates the unicast packets and forwards the enclosed multicastpacket to the downstream nodes on the multicast tree. With theassumption of multicast routing protocol of PIM-SM, i.e., protocolindependent multicast with sparse mode, these two functions can beachieved with existing PIM-SM specification plus little change. InPIM-SM, each group has a unicast message called a register message andthere is a specific Rendezvous Point (RP). The register message is aunicast message and is used by the designated router (DR) for amulticast source to send the data packets to the RP via unicast path. Tosupport IP encapsulation restoration, a register message may be allowedto flow between multicast routers even if they are not DR for a datasource or a RP for a group. Upon failure, a multicast routerencapsulates undelivered multicast packets in Register messages andsends them to the next hop node on the multicast tree. Upon receivingthe encapsulated packet, the multicast router de-capsulates the message,and forwards to the downstream nodes on the multicast tree just like aRP. A node should drop the encapsulated message if it is receiving thenormal multicast packets for the same group.

To implement the IP encapsulation restoration method, vendors only needto modify the multicast module to detect the failure and use Registermessage to deliver the undelivered multicast packets, and also modifythe module to handle the encapsulated message appropriately once amulticast router receives it.

For the multicast routing table, the router needs not only the multicasttree outgoing interfaces, but also the next router loop back addressesof each outgoing interfaces for undelivered multicast packetsencapsulation.

FIG. 4 illustrates link weights for IP encapsulation. In FIG. 4, a largedot 402 means high weight and a small dot 404 means low weight for thelinks pointing outwards from the interface. It is easy to verify thatthe solid arrows form the multicast tree. Each directional link on themulticast tree is failure disjoint from its unicast shortest pathbetween the two end nodes. For example, for link C-E, the shortestunicast path from C to E is C-B-A-D-E. Since link C-E and the unicastpath C-B-A-D-E are failure disjoint, upon link C-E failure, the unicastshortest path between C and E is not affected by the failure, so therouter C will encapsulate the multicast packets with IP address destinedto router E and the encapsulated IP unicast packets will travel alongthe path (C-B-A-D-E) to reach downstream node E during the networkconvergence. Similarly if link C-G fails, router C will encapsulate theundelivered multicast packets with IP address destined to router G andthe encapsulated IP unicast packets will travel along path C-B-A-F-G.Under any single link failure, the network continues to functionperfectly. The network can also survive multiple failures or continue toprovide degraded services for a short period (convergence time only)under multiple failures, as illustrated in FIG. 5.

FIG. 5 a illustrates the impact of a dual link failure scenario with astatic backup path approach. In FIG. 5 a, thick lines are links withhigh link weight, and thin lines are the links with low link weights.Here only link A-B and link C-G have high weights while all other linkshave low weights. Under normal operation, the solid arrows in FIG. 5 a 1show the multicast tree. The dotted arrows in FIG. 5 a 1 are staticbackup paths for unidirectional link D-E and unidirectional link C-Brespectively. Upon link D-E failure, multicast packets are rerouted tonode E via static backup path D-A-B-C-E, as illustrated in FIG. 5 a 2.Note that there is no network re-convergence since bundle link E-D isstill operational. If link C-B fails before link D-E is fixed, then boththe primary link and backup path of bundle link E-D fail, which wouldtrigger network re-convergence. But the service at node D, E, C, and Bwould be interrupted until the network is converged and a new tree isrebuilt as shown in FIG. 5 a 3. In this case, the service interruptioncould last more than 10 seconds.

FIG. 5 b illustrates the impact of a dual link failure scenario with adynamic unicast path restoration approach. Link weights are associatedwith interfaces. The big dots in FIG. 5 b indicate high weights for thelinks going outwards at those interfaces, and the small dots indicatelow weights. FIG. 5 b 1 illustrates the network under normal operation,the solid arrows indicating the multicast tree and the dotted arrowsindicating the unicast path from D to E and B to C. Upon link D-Efailure, the network would re-converge. During the converging period,the node D would encapsulate the undelivered multicast packets with IPdestination address of node E and forward them to E following unicastpath D-A-B-C-E until a new tree is built. After re-convergence, theunicast path is updated as well. The dotted arrow in FIG. 5 b 2 is theunicast path from C to B, which is different from the unicast path fromC to B in FIG. 5 b 1. If link B-C fails before link D-E is fixed, node Cwould encapsulate the undelivered multicast packets with destinationaddress of node B and forward to B via the unicast path in FIG. 5 b 2until the new tree is built as shown in FIG. 5 b 3. During this process,no node experiences service interruption or degradation, demonstratinghow dynamic IP unicast encapsulation restoration has multiple failuresurvivability.

However, under multiple failures, some congestion may happen even with adynamic unicast approach. For example, if router B fails in FIG. 5 b 1,the new multicast tree would be A-D-E-C and A-F-G. If link F-G failswhile B is being repaired, router F will encapsulate the undeliveredmulticast packets destined to router F, and the encapsulated packetswill travel along path F-A-D-E-C-G, which would overlap with multicasttree branch A-D-E-C and cause potential congestion. To minimize theimpact of such unwanted congestion, multicast packets may be assignedhigher forwarding priority and encapsulated unicast packets may beassigned lower forwarding priority. In this way, the congestion wouldonly impact the children of the failed link on the multicast tree. Inthis case, only node G would experience service degradation duringnetwork convergence period. However, with static backup path approach,node G would have no service at all during protocol convergenceinterval.

FIG. 6 illustrates a sample undirected network graph with assignedweights. Specifically, FIG. 6 shows a network with 8 nodes illustratedas circles and 14 undirected links illustrated as lines connecting thenodes. To set the weights, start from S and find a set of links thatform a ring, such as S-1-5-6-2-S. Then set the weight of unidirectionallinks along direction S-1-5-6-2-S to high cost and weights of theunidirectional links along the other direction S-2-6-5-1-S to low cost.The links with assigned weights form graph (ring) G. Next find a set oflinks that form a path whose endpoints intersect G, e.g. 1-3-5. Set theweight of unidirectional links along direction 1-3-5 to high cost,weight of unidirectional links along the other direction 5-3-1 to lowcost, and the add these links to G. Next find another chain whoseendpoints intersect G. For example, find 3-4-6, and set unidirectionallinks along direction 3-4-6 to high cost and unidirectional links alongthe other direction 6-4-3 to low cost and then add these links to G.Continuing the same procedure, set the weight of unidirectional linksalong direction 2-8-6 to high cost and 6-8-2 to low cost. Then setunidirectional links along direction 5-7-8 to high cost andunidirectional links along direction 8-7-5 to low cost. Only link 1-2are left with no weight. According to the algorithm, set unidirectionallink 1-2 to high cost and unidirectional link 2-1 to low cost.

FIG. 7 illustrates a graph for a unicast routing path based on thenetwork shown and described in FIG. 6. With the assigned weights, themulticast tree and the unicast forwarding paths for each unidirectionallink on the multicast tree can be generated. They are shown in FIG. 7where the network is assumed to run PIM-SSM for multicast forwarding andOSPF for unicast routing. The solid arrows form the multicast tree andthe dotted arrows form the unicast forwarding paths for eachunidirectional link on the multicast tree.

For example, in FIG. 7, we have the following unicast routing paths foreach of the multicast links:

-   -   S-1: S-2-1    -   1-2: 1-S-2    -   1-3: 1-S-2-6-5-3 or 1-S-2-6-4-3    -   1-5: 1-S-2-6-5    -   2-8: 2-6-5-7-8    -   3-4:3-1-S-2-6-4    -   5-6: 5-7-8-6    -   8-7: 8-6-5-7

Note that all unidirectional links on the multicast tree are high costlinks and the unidirectional links on the unicast paths are low costlinks. Therefore, the backup paths and the multicast tree do notoverlap.

Another aspect involves a method of encapsulating undelivered multicastpackets into unicast packets and delivering them to a next hop router ona multicast tree upon network failure. This method includes associatinga next hop router loopback address with a multicast outgoing interfaceduring multicast routing table creation and detecting a link/interfacefailure on the multicast tree rapidly. A possible mechanism for carryingout these steps may be the same as link/interface failure detection fora Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) fast reroute. The method mayfurther include encapsulating undelivered multicast packets into unicastpackets with a destination of next hop router loopback address andsending out the unicast packets via unicast forwarding. After receivingthe encapsulated multicast packets, the method includes de-capsulattingby the next hop router the encapsulated multicast packets into multicastpackets and forwarding them down the multicast tree and tuning networklink weights such that the multicast traffic and unicast traffic travelon disjoint paths between two routers.

Embodiments within the scope of the present invention may also includecomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM,CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carryor store desired program code means in the form of computer-executableinstructions or data structures. When information is transferred orprovided over a network or another communications connection (eitherhardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to a computer, the computerproperly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, anysuch connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium.Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope ofthe computer-readable media.

Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions anddata which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function orgroup of functions. Computer-executable instructions also includeprogram modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or networkenvironments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,objects, components, and data structures, etc. that perform particulartasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executableinstructions, associated data structures, and program modules representexamples of the program code means for executing steps of the methodsdisclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executableinstructions or associated data structures represents examples ofcorresponding acts for implementing the functions described in suchsteps.

Those of skill in the art will appreciate that other embodiments of theinvention may be practiced in network computing environments with manytypes of computer system configurations, including personal computers,hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based orprogrammable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframecomputers, and the like. Embodiments may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by localand remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwiredlinks, wireless links, or by a combination thereof) through acommunications network. In a distributed computing environment, programmodules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the invention are part of the scope ofthis invention. For example, multicast or unicast radio broadcasts overIP, on-demand TV over IP, or just-in-time video game rentals over IP.Accordingly, the appended claims and their legal equivalents should onlydefine the invention, rather than any specific examples given.

1. A method comprising: starting from a source node, locating a seriesof network links in an undirected network graph that form a ring;assigning weights to the series of network links such that multicastforwarding paths and unicast forwarding paths are failure disjoint; andupon network failure, delivering undelivered multicast packets usinginternet protocol unicast encapsulation to a next hop router on amulticast tree.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the weights result inthe series of network links having a high cost in a first direction anda low cost in a second direction.
 3. The method of claim 2, furthercomprising communicating multicast traffic in the first direction andthe second direction.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein multicasttraffic and unicast traffic do not travel on a same path between nodes.5. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating one of atelevision signal, an audio signal, and a radio signal over theundirected network.
 5. (canceled)
 6. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising, after delivering the multicast packets upon network failure,tuning the weights such that multicast traffic and unicast traffictravel on disjoint paths.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprisingperforming the assigning of the weights iteratively.
 8. A systemcomprising: a processor; and a computer-readable storage medium havinginstructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause theprocessor to perform operations comprising: starting from a source node,locating a series of network links in an undirected network graph thatform a ring; assigning weights to the series of network links such thatmulticast forwarding paths and unicast forwarding paths are failuredisjoint; and upon network failure, delivering undelivered multicastpackets using internet protocol unicast encapsulation to a next hoprouter on a multicast tree.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein theweights result in the series of network links having a high cost in afirst direction and a low cost in a second direction.
 10. The system ofclaim 9, the computer-readable storage medium having additionalinstructions stored which result in operations comprising communicatingmulticast traffic in the first direction and the second direction. 11.The system of claim 8, wherein multicast traffic and unicast traffic donot travel on a same path between nodes.
 12. The system of claim 8, thecomputer-readable storage medium having additional instructions storedwhich result in operations further comprising communicating one of atelevision signal, an audio signal, and a radio signal over theundirected network.
 13. The system of claim 8, the computer-readablestorage medium having additional instructions stored which result inoperations further comprising adding a link having no weight to theundirected network graph.
 14. The system of claim 8, thecomputer-readable storage medium having additional instructions storedwhich result in operations further comprising, after delivering themulticast packets upon network failure, tuning the weights such thatmulticast traffic and unicast traffic travel on disjoint paths.
 15. Thesystem of claim 8, the computer-readable storage medium havinginstructions stored which result in operations further comprisingperforming the assigning of the weights iteratively.
 16. Acomputer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, whenexecuted by a computing device, cause the computing device to performoperations comprising: starting from a source node, locating a series ofnetwork links in an undirected network graph that form a ring; assigningweights to the series of network links such that multicast forwardingpaths and unicast forwarding paths are failure disjoint; and uponnetwork failure, delivering undelivered multicast packets using internetprotocol unicast encapsulation to a next hop router on a multicast tree.17. The computer-readable storage device of claim 16, wherein theweights result in the series of network links having a high cost in afirst direction and a low cost in a second direction.
 18. Thecomputer-readable storage device of claim 17, having additionalinstructions stored which result in operations comprising communicatingmulticast traffic in the first direction and the second direction. 19.The computer-readable storage device of claim 16, wherein multicasttraffic and unicast traffic do not travel on a same path between nodes.20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 16, having additionalinstructions stored which result in operations further comprisingcommunicating one of a television signal, an audio signal, and a radiosignal over the undirected network.